Our security monitors are also unarmed and also extremely street-wise. But being the inner city school that we are, we also have several armed police officers on campus at any given moment. Usually they are serving warrants and making arrests, but they also cruise through to make sure everything is cool. I'd say a fair percentage of our student body has a record of one sort or another....Many are on probation. That's one reason they don't mess with me. I used to be a Probation & Parole Officer.
Sounds like my school too. I managed to get a lot of respect from being a coach. Football, soccer, and the weight events in track. There was usually some angle I could work. But our school is in the SF Bay Area and you know how CA is about guns.
But we did have armed security one of the High Holy days where there had been a shooting down in a Jewish day care in LA. One of the congregants told my wife how happy the armed guards made him feel, she told him she would rather be packing herself, that was a short conversation.